Abstract

Vittorio Possenti’s Terza Navigatione is a much welcome and needed ado about nothing. More precisely, it is much ado about the nihilism that presently smothers Western philosophy and culture. Mired in nihilism, contemporary philosophy and culture attempt to comprehend themselves, and get lost in a nihilistic smog. Instead of recognizing the essentially nihilistic nature of the intellectual confusion that confronts them, contemporary philosophy and culture tend to see this nihilism in accidental forms, such as consumerism, moral relativism, technocracy. As Possenti rightly understands, the West’s current intellectual malaise is much deeper, and more difficult to eradicate, than these accidental instantiations might suggest. Possenti’s central question is: How can philosophy and Western culture transcend nihilism when it surrounds us, like the air we breathe?